One time, at lunch with a coworker, I left my chopsticks standing upright in a bowl of rice.
I was mortified.

That coworker has never talked to me since.

One of the top mistakes they make is always saying thank-you to restaurant waitresses. Chinese don't do that. Do as the Romans do, please.

Blucat..are you serious?
Chinese have a total superiority complex when it comes to foreigners, I can't remember the amount of times I've heard, 'You don't understand China, you're a foreigner' or 'China has a long history' together with a patronising smile.
You think just because you have a long history means you are special?

History is history.

Look at China now, you don't have a proper sewage system in you capital for f*cks sake.
You talk about 'soft power' and development, but it's gonna take a long time to develop a country the size of China with the amount of people in China to the level of the West.
Even the buildings you are building now are of bad quality. Financial street paving stones started breaking and coming up after one year ( I lived there) the same goes for all your prestige projects, all show and no substance.
Chinese think that they are somehow different from other societies, that foreign 'barbarians' are unable to understand the complexities of Chinese society. hahah what a f*cking joke. That kind of arrogance led to the fall of China in the first place.
Chinese are human beings just the same as the rest of the world. The fact that Chinese society lasted so long is mainly down to luck.

Sounds exactly like Japan and Japanese people. I've had almost exactly the same thing said to me on many occasions.

They are actually only a little off the mark though. It's not impossible for foreigners to understand the country and the people, but it takes a long time, and the average foreigner thinks they understand it a lot better than they generally do. But even with understanding, it's only understanding from an outsider's view, not from being one of the people growing up as part of the culture. But, that being said, the same is true of all cultures - outsiders can never really know what it's like to grow up and be a part of that culture, they can only at best get a very complete outsider's view of it.

@ HuanChu, I guess many laowais never think they make mistakes in China, whatever appears to be nonsense is mainly because too many Chinese people are uneducated, uncivilized, brainwashed and narrow minded.

2. Believing everything that other laowais say about the Chinese.

3. Believing everything that other laowais say about their China experiences.

basically I think a good chunk of the members of most societies feel themselves superior to outsiders. If Einstein, JFK and Ernest Hemingway traipsed together into the Amazon rainforest and into a tribe of indigenous forest-dwellers that wore no clothes and didn't know how to read and write, I'm sure most of them would look at that trio and say to themselves, "these people don't really know much about getting along in this world, do they?"

Laowai that are so quick to use the phrase "all chinese people are ..." should really try turning that concept around and realize they are making the same generalizations that drive them crazy when they hear "all foreigners are ..."

So with that in mind, my #1 top mistake laowais make in china is:

1. Using limited observations and experiences to classify all Chinese. Failing to understand that not every experience you have is a symptom of the fundamental characteristics of the Chinese people.

Your post helps justify my stance that people born in the United States who look Chinese are, in fact, not Chinese at all. They know little or nothing about the culture and are truly outsiders to the natives here.

How do you know that they know nothing or little about their culture?
I am sure there are many that know plenty, given that family is where we learn most.

The most common mistake newcomers make is to think chinese are all the same, "we" or collective mass. Actually when speaking in chinese, "we" isn't used more often than it does in English. Most of the times "I" is used unless refer to a group of people then "we" is used. The same as English.

With that I see many laowais on this forum have jumped over that hoop start recognize the individualism in chinese, and different entities in China.

Actually laowais, give yourself a round of applause! laowais in China are much more worldly and knowledgeable of China than the avareage Joe in your home country.

CHINESE IS NOT A RACE! IT IS A NATIONALITY!

Perhaps its the same as talking about a room full of Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Singaporeans, and calling them 'Asian', without talking to any of them directly.

I.e. "The Asians over there want to know where the hotel is." Some of them may find it offensive.

Also, it's the fact that many Chinese use it to refer to us, even when they know which country we are from.

Also, in my experience, when i refer to a Chinese in a foreign airport (LA and London come to mind specifically) and they hear me, they seem none to happy.

Why would that be?